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Ontonagon Ontonagon 



A Great Country for the Flock- A Great Country for the Flock- 
master, Herdsman and Farmer master, Herdsman and Farmer 





Goat Raising in Northern Michigan. 



Goat Raising in Northern Michigan. 



By colonel L. D. BURCH. 
Editor "Amebic.in Sheep Bbkeder," Chicago, 



By colonel L.'d. BURCH, 

Editor "A5iebic.\n Sheep BKEfeoEB," Chicago. 



AN INVITING COUNTRY 



FOR THE 



Flockmaster, Herdsman and Farmer 



From Marinette, on beautiful Green Bay, to Ontonagon, 
on Lake Superior, is only 175 miles via the Superior divis- 
ion of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, but 
they are miles invested with such charms of landscape, 
wealth of forest, field, mine, orchard and garden, and such 
wondrous agricultural and pastoral resource that I am in- 
clined to tell their story to the readers of the American 
Sheep Breeder. And the more so because I have been often 
urged to the pleasant task by flockmasters of the middle 
and western states eager for knowledge of cheap grazing 
lands under promising conditions of climate and soil, social 
and industrial development. Everybody has heard and 
thousands can testify from delightful experience of this 
upper lake region, that 

THE SUMMER CLIMATE IS IDEAL— 
that never a breath of malaria has swept this north country; 
that the air is laden with the odor of hemlock, pine, cedar, 
spruce, balsam, fir and balm of Gilead. borne on life-giving 



breezes from the great lakes; that northern Wisconsin and 
upper Michigan are a great natural sanitarium where the 
old grow young, the weak grow strong and rejuvenation 
comes^ to all, but not every one can boar testimony to 

AN EQUALLY ENJOYABLE WINTER CLIMATE, 

because not everyone has passed a winter where the snow . 
falls in December and remains till early April; where there 
are no blizzards, no January thaws, no winter rains, no sleet, 
slush or mud. no radical changes of temperature, but 70 
days o^ reliable business sleighing with sleigh bells ringing, 
frost in the air, the lumbermen in the woods or on the 
road, the mercury close around zero and the crisp, balmy 
air laden with ozone and bringing superabounding health, 
spirit, vigor and tone to men and animals. This is the ideal 
winter without any intermingling of fall or summer, a sea- 
son that everybody who has tested it enjoys to the full. 
I have never yet found a resident of this upper lake country 




High Falls on Peshtigo River. 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



complaining of the rigors of winter, wliich Is a far more 
deliglitful season Iiere than in Chicago. Buffalo. New York. 
Boston or St. Louis, because uniform and always as enjoy- 
able as it is healthful. Once or twice in the season a Man- 
itoba wave will send the mercury down to 25 below zero for 
four or five days, when it may be 30 below in Omaha, Kan- 
sas City, Chicago or Toronto. The country I am writing 
about has 

A MATCHLESS WATER SUPPLY. 
There is nothing like it — nothing so beautiful or perfect be- 
tween the two oceans. Every way one looks or drives are 



NATIVE AND DOMESTIC GRASSES 

that cover millions of acres of the cut-over and burnt-over 
grass country, the former embracing a dozen varieties of 
hay grass growing in swarthy luxuriance on the wild beaver 
meadows, which are dominated by the tall and tender "blue 
Joint." The wild grasses of the uplands probably number 
thirty or more varieties, including the highly prized white 
clover and blue grrass, both of which are indigenous to the 
country, and the tall, magnificent "blue stem" of the prai- 
ries, the bunch grass of the plains and mountains, the much- 
prized. Grama grass of the Western ranges and short, sweet 



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Eag^Ie River Dairy Farm Products, IVlarinette County. 



clear lakes, solitary, or in groups and chains, all fed by 
springs or spring brooks and presenting a beautiful and con- 
tinuous water system by connecting inlets or outlets. These 
lakes may be acres or miles in extent, but everywhere they 
are clear as amber, generally deep and always cold as the 
regal springs that feed them. And the rivulets and ^brooks, 
and rushing, rapid rivers, born of the thousands of modest 
or magnificent springs, are everywhere from busy Marinette 
to the southern shores of Lake Superior 

A LABYRINTH OF BRIGHT WATERS 

touching or reaching into every half-section or quarter-sec- 
tion of land and furnishing every ranch, farm home or camp 
an everlasting supply of pure. cold, living and running wa- 
ter. These lakes and springs and streams are the glory of 
_ th<l cquntji' ajxd. the priffcr of; ftj? settlers. Next to thopo 



buffalo grass, with no end of other grazing herbage, in- 
cluding the wild pea vine, oat and rye grasses. Inter- 
mixed with these wild grasses and growing rank along the 
railwai's, the public roads, the old lumber trails, in the 
glades. Intervals, lumber camps and cut-over lands, are 
the red and alsike clovers, timothy and orchard grass, 
scattered by the birds and animals, and all tracing 
back to the baled hay of the lumber camps. In many places 
these domestic grasses completely possess the land and 
may be cut for hay. Supplementing these grasses are an 
endless variety of wild browse, most of it sappy, succulent 
and nutritious and very fattening to sheep, goats, cattle and 
the wild deer that feed upon it with great relish. The bulk 
of all this splendid herbage is now unutilized and 

GOING TO WASTE 

for want of stock to feed it off. There is enough of this 



•iOV 27 1904 

D, -<■ ^ 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



priceless herbage in a single county, now going to feed the 
elements, to summer graze from 200.000 to 250,000 sheep 
atid goats, or from 15,000 to 20,000 cattle without interfer- 
ence with present farm operations. And this within 12 ami 
15 hours by rail of the greatest beef and mutton market 
of the world, while millions of sheep and hundreds of thou- 
sands of cattle are famishing for fresh, green pastures like 
these. Except for the fact that these magnificent open 
grazing fields are located in 

A PASTORAL TERRA INCOGNITA, 

of which the Western stockman sees and knows nothing, 
this waste of pastoral wealth would seem prodigal and 



insula of Michigan constitute the banner grass and hay 
country of America and. for that matter, of the world, and 
long ago should have been designated on the map and im- 
mortalized in song and story as 

CLOVERLAND, 

or grassland. It passes belief how the clovers and grasses 
grow in these strong, retentive, moist and matchless soils. 
I have myself sown clover in both upper Wisconsin and 
upper Michigan for the last four years, not pounds, but 
bushels of it — red and alsike clover — and apparently never 
lost a seed. The growtti of clover is enormous and the plant 
never fails of two crops in a season. There is no such 




Oat Field In Marinette County, on Skidmore Lands. 



criminal. It must be remembered that good Mother Na- 
ture has provided these rich grazing grounds with nothing 
more than the incidental help of man, and that with mu- 
nificent hand she gives the rains and dews and sunshine to 
keep them 

IN LIVING GREEN THROUGH ALL THE YEAR— 
in summer with the rains and dews and sunshine that have 
never yet failed, and in winter under a mantle of snow that 
warms and freshens them for grazing as soon as the snow- 
disappears. I have watched these beautiful pasture lands 
for the last four seasons and never yet saw them brown 
from heat and drought. All through this north country 

THE RAINFALL NEVER FAILS, 

but is as reliable as the tides. Rain makes grass and grass 
gives pastoral wealth far and away greater than any other 
rural resource. Northern Wisconsin and the Upper Pen- 



clover country between Boston harbor and the Golden Gate. 
I have scattered seed from March to August in oats and 
peas, fodder corn and even on the unbroken wild land 
among the brush and browse and never failed of a stand. 
Clover never winter-kills in this region. Never "heaves 
out" or freezes out. It sleeps under the snow and comes 
out in early April, green and fresh, a thing of beauty and 
a Joy forever. It will hold its own with timothy, red top. 
or any hay grass, reseeding itself, and like Tennyson's 
brook, "goes on forever." All this will seem strange talk 
to the farmers of the older states, but it is true as holy 
writ. 

HAY FARMING 

is immensely profitable in this northern country where tim- 
othy hay finds a ready market in the towns and lumber 
camps at $14 to $15 per ton and the new settler can pay for 
a new farm with the first crop of hay, or for an older farm 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



in cultivation with the first three crops harvested. An 
average crop of timothy is two tons per acre — often more, 
and the first two crops of hay will pay for a new farm and 
the additional cost of clearing the land. I know of no other 
country where this can be attempted without some risk of 
failure, of which there is none whatever here. Hay farm- 
ing, however, is, in the long run, unprofitable, for it is a 
heavy draft even upon the richest lands where nothing is 
given back for replenishment of the soil. From the fore- 
going notes the clear sighted reader will conclude that I 
am writing of 

A ROYAL STOCK COUNTRY, 
and that is pre-eminently what this whole region is, begin- 
ning with Marinette county. Wis., and ending with Onton- 



I lambs that I raised in that neighborhood four years ago, 
that were fat enough for block or show, and did not know 
the taste of grain. There are small flocks of Shropshires in 
Ontonagon county that have given ISO per cent lamb crops 
and though mainly wintered on wild hay are always fit for 
mutton or show. Mr. Walter Prickett has kept Angora 
goats and Shropshire sheep at Sidnaw, in Houghton county, 
for several years with profit and satisfaction. Hon. Isaac 
Stephenson of Marinette and Hon. Sam Stephenson of Me- 
nominee have prosperous and profitable small fiocks of sheep 
and Angoras as they have herds of cattle and horses. There 
are several good sized flocks of sheep running on the open 
range in Marinette county that are reported as doing ex- 
ceedingly well. And the wonder is that train loads of 




Native Blue Stem Qrass at Intervale, 



agon county, in upper Michigan. Where grasses grow with 
amazing spontaneity and luxuriance, never failing for want 
of moisture; where the clovers roll up two full rank crops; 
where oats and peas grow in combination into three anii 
four tons of hay to the acre; where all the root crops yiel.l 
enormously and where grazing is good from the 15th (if 
April to the 20th of November, and the winter feeding sea- 
son is not a day longer than in lower Michigan, northern 
Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; where the waters are pure and 
plenteous, and the grasses as nutritious and fattening as 
anywhere on earth, there is where cattle and sheep, swinr 
and horses will flourish and make wealth for the soil and 
good bank balances for the farmer. Do 1 think this 

A GOOD SHEEP AND GOAT COUNTRY? 

Yes, never a better! First of all there are numerous small 
flocks of sheep and goats in this region and almost without 
exception they are in prime condition, not only showing 
"bloom" most of the year, but giving from 90 to 175 per 
cent lamb crops. I saw a flock of 18 sheep and Iambs iv 
Menominee county, Mich., last week, built up from e\v. 



SHEEP FOR SUMMER GRAZING 
are not brought into this territory in spring for lambing, 
then summer-grazed and shipped to Chicago in the fall. 
Happily a break has recently been made in this direction 
by "a Wyoming ranchman who shipped 3,200 range sheep 
to Grand Rapids, Wood county. Wis., to be reshipped to 
market as grass fed muttons in the fall, the St. Paul road 
bringing them in from Omaha early this month. While at 
Sidnaw last week I met Mr. W. D. Cook, a well-known 
eastern Colorado sheepman, who had selected 640 acres of 
cut-over land near that village as a permanent sheep ranch 
for his son, who will bring 1,000 Colorado ewes to begin with 
and enlaige the flock as soon as he can break land and raise 
clover for wintering. Mr. Cook says he never saw so fine 
a grass country as this along the St. Paul road, nor a coun- 
try so well suited for feeding sheep and lambs for the mut- 
ton market, and he predicts the building up of 

A GREAT SHEEP AND LAMB FEEDING INDUSTRY 
along this St. Paul road, both on account of the superior 
water and cheap grazing and the enormous crops of oats. 



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FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



barley, peas, wheat and roots that are so cheaply grown 
here. The only unsolved problem ot sheep keeping in this 
country on a large scale, is the immediate want of winter 
feed, such as clover hay, oats, fodder corn, pea hay aiu; 
roots and the utilization of the wild grasses of the beaver 
meadows. This problem, however, may be easily solved by 
the facility with which the cut-over lands may be broken 
and sown with these heavy producing winter hay crops, all 
of which may be seeded down to clover the first season. 
after which the clover fields are adequate for all needs and 
emergencies. These cut-over lands are 

A GOAT RAISER'S PARADISE, 
and for this growing industry present the finest field in 
America. Sweet, sappy, fattening browse in almost infinite 



THE SUIVIMER GRAZING OF CATTLE, 

a favorite industry with many stockmen. Cattle grow and 
fatten on these grasses with wondrous facility and like the 
wild deer of these woods, c'ome out in the fall as sleek and 
fat as seals. The grass keeps green and succulent all the 
season tbrough, and even the town cows are fat enough for 
beef in November. The brush and cedar swamps afford 
a grateful refuge from the flies in the heat of the day, the 
pure water and invigorating air gives the cattle appetite 
and tone and the young steer, or dry cow, comes off with 
250 or more pounds of additional flesh in the fall. There is 

NO END OF IDEAL CATTLE RANCHES 
for the summer grazier all through the. country tributary 
to the St. Paul line from Ellis Junction to where Ontona- 



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The Angora in Northern Michigan. 



variety offers a tempting field for the Angora breeder. The 
goat is the best and quickest civilizer of raw brush land, 
and like sheep, is a wonderful fertilizer of the soil. Con- 
fined within goat proof enclosures for two seasons, he kills 
out the scrub root and branch, leaving behind him a sea 
of grass fit for the sheep, dairy cows, feeding cattle, or the 
plow. During this brief period he has worked for nothing 
and boarded himself, besides turning off two crops of kids 
and mohair. A flock of 100 Angoras, or common goats, are 
worth more in clearing up new brush land than the best 
woodsman that ever wielded an axe. and the writer has 
pleasure in saying that the region herein reviewed would 
subsist all the 2.000,000 goats — Angoras or common goats — 
now in the United States, without consuming a blade of all 
the superlative grasses now growing on these cut-over lands. 
The goat is a browser, not a grazer, and rarely eats grass 
except by compulsion. He is therefore the greatest civil- 
izer of a new wooded country and as such cannot be too 
highly regarded. There is another department of stock 
farming for which this region is pre-eminently suited, even 
in this early pioneer stage, and that is 



gon looks out upon the blue waves of Superior. I could 
locate hundreds of them by the springs and trout brooks 
and lakes of central and northern Marinette county, just 
across the river in Menominee county, Mich., and other 
hundreds in Iron, Baraga. Houghton and Ontonagon coun- 
ties, Mich., and 

NOT ONE IN AN HUNDRED IS UTILIZED 
for this seductive, entertaining and profitable business. It 
is simply the purchase of feeders at the Chicago yards 
in the spring, running them from May to November, in- 
clusive, and returning them to Chicago fat and quickly 
salable as grassfeds in late November. The few experi- 
ments of summer grazing so far made, have been fruitful 
of good results and all that is needed to inaugurate a big 
movement in this direction is to secure encouraging freight 
rates from and to Chicago, a proposition which the railway 
people are prettj' sure to favor. And there is 
THE AGRICULTURAL SIDE 
of the country which I am feebly sketching, and which 
to the variety farmer will have special significance. In 



FROM MARINEITE TO ONTONAGON. 



briefly outlining the possibilities of this fertile and fruitful 
country for special stock farming or ranching I have not 
told the reader that it is one of the best all-round farm 
regions in the United States, a statement easily verifieii 
by a visit to the country. There is not a region or district 
in all the country of more 

VERSATILE SOILS AND BOUNTIFUL PRODUCTION 

than the counties herein reviewed. The lands differ in 
kind and texture from the dark clay-loams of the hardwood 
districts to the lighter and less consistent sandj'-loams of 
the pine tree districts, but everywhere they are retentive 
of moisture and fertilizers, always and everywhere respon- 



plant growth are surprisingly rapid and the quality of the 
products surprisingly good. The rain falls during the grow- 
ing season as if furnished in fulfillment of the farmers' 
needs and order, and nobody doubts that seed time will 
be followed by abundant harvests. 1 his whole upper Wis- 
consin and Michigan country is 

A VERITABLE SMALL FARMER'S PARADISE, 
where may be grown about everything known to husbandry, 
and generous crops of it, too, with delightful assurance and 
certainty. Not only this but the farmer has here within 
his own territory and at his very door the finest farm 
produce market on the continent. A better market than 




Cut-Over Land and Trout Brouk "Loaded with Speckled Beauties." 



sive to good treatment, and everywhere give not only gen- 
erous crops, but 

THE WIDEST RANGE OF PRODUCTION 
known to the middle latitudes. Winter or spring wheat 
grow with equal facility, and yield bountiful crops. Barli \ 
is a certain and big crop. Oats give heavier yield h<i. 
than in any country of my knowledge. Rye is an unfallint; 
crop and so are flax and buckwheat. A-il the early varieties 
of corn mature and yield well. Field peas do better hen' 
than in any other portion of the continent and a bug^x 
or imperfect pea is unknown. Beans do finely, cabbat," 
rape, turnips, mangles, beets, carets, parsnips, kale, poi.. 
toes, onions, millet, sorghum and, indeed, every product .i 
garden and field known to the temperate zone is as mucli 
at home here as in any part of America. And better still 

there are — 

NO CROP FAILURES 

ever recorded in this north country, where vegetable and 



Chicago. New York or Boston, with little or no expense for 
transportation. In the iron and copper mines of the Lake 
Superior region are close to 200,000 of the best paid workers 
in the world and the best livers among the world's workers. 
In the woods and camps and lumber mills of tliis same re- 
gion, are 50,000 more of the best paid woodsmen and mill 
men, in the United States, and in the iron mills, pulp mills, 
tanneries, wood working factories, hotels, mercantile houses, 
banks, shops, fisheries and upper lake marine service close 
to 50,000 more wage earners who are better paid than in 
any other country. Ninety per cent of all the food stuffs 
consumed by this great army of men and their dependent 
families comes from outside, and must continue to do so 
for years to come. And that is why the farmers of this 
region have 

THE BEST HOME MARKET IN THE WORLD 
for everything the farm can produce. The market price 
,of beef, pork, flour, poultry and dairy products, hay, grains. 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



vegetables and fruits is always high and the demand stead- 
ily increasing. Everything the farmer grows is eagerly 
picked up at his very door. The summer months bring to 
the hundreds of lakeside resorts in all fhis upper country, 
at least 150,000 pleasure and health seekers and they must 
be fed upon the fat of the land. The new settler is be- 



his chickens are plucking the white clover in his dooryard. 
his family are drinking from the purest and coldest of 
springs, he is master and monarch of 40 to 80 acres of land, 
a freeholder with his winter's supplies growing, he has no 
wood or coal to buy, no rent to pay and if he lacks cash 
to pay taxes or grocer's bills, he can g'et all the work he 




Dairy Farm near Ellis Junction, Wisconsin. 



sieged with calls for his eggs, butter, poultry, garden prod- 
ucts, milk, cream and other luxuries of garden and field 
and may make his own price for what he has to sell. I 
know of 

NO COUNTRY SO EASY OF SETTLEMENT 
as this of which I am writing. The new settler if only 
he shall come in the early spring, may clear away the 
brush and build his log cabin from the cedar, tamarack, 
spruce or hemlock poles that are growing on his own land 
and in ten days be sleeping under his own roof-tree. Two 



wants near home at the liighest wage paid to common labor 
anywhere in the world. His services are worth $30 or $35 
a month, including board, in any lumber camp or mill, and 
if he has a good team he- can command $75 a month and 
board for self and team for a month or six months at 
pleasure. No contingency or risk in all this, for nothing 
is more staple than labor at these prices. If, however, he 
is able to confine his services to his own land, he may cut 
his cedar and tamarack posts and poles, his maple timber 
into cord wood, his hemlock and birch and basswood into 




Field of Sug:ar Beets on H. P. Bird Farm at Wausaukee. 



weeks more will suffice to clear and break five or ten acres 
for potatoes, corn, and garden and by the middle of May 
he may have in a few acres of oats, peas, turnips and 
fodder corn, and all but the turnip and potato patches 
seeded down to clover. His cows are feeding on clover, 
timothy and bluegrass growing in profusion all around him. 



logs and his dead cedar into shingle bolts and get good 

money for any of them at the nearest railroad station. 

, At fhe end of the first year he is further advanced in the 

(■ ways of independent living than the man on the prairies. 

has less hardships to encounter. less risks to take and more 

I substantial progress made. It is 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



THE BEST POOR MAN'S COUNTRY 

I have ever seen or known, for here the workman always 
has his innings. His employer may be a millionaire lum- 
berman or miner, but he himself is clothed in the dignity 
of a citizen sovereign whose calling and worth and person- 
ality everybody respects. No man so poor here but by 
the might of his strong hands and steady purposes he may 
become a freeholder, the owner of a 40 or 80-acre farm 
and in due time an independent farmer. Nature aids him 
with pure air, pure water, the growing grasses and norm.il 
health. Industry favors him with so many avenues of 
employment that he is never in doubt about the 
future. If he be level headed, determined and indus- 
trious he may aspire to ownership of a grain, fruit, 
dairy, poultry or sheep farm, for to him any or 
all of these is possible and any or all may be realized 



clover. Where clover grows there are always 

STRONG SANCTIONS TO RURAL INDUSTRY. 

After the clover meadows come big crops of wheat, I'ye, 
barley, oats, corn, buckwheat, peas, beans, potatoes, turnips, 
sorghum and now I may add, sugar beets, of which the 
farmers of Marinette and Menominee counties are growing 
thousands of acres to supply the 1,000 barrel beet sugar 
mill which will be in operation in Menominee the coming 
October. Here in 

MARINETTE COUNTY 

are the finest sugar beet fields I have seen in any of the 
noted sugar beet states, and it is not too much to claim 
for this county a degree of rural prosperity unexcelled by 
any county in Wisconsin. Here are scores of beautiful 
farms highly improved with buildings, orchards, fences and 




Stump LJIastiii 



it> , Michigan. 



in perfection. It is a poor man's country superlative, be- 
cause it is God's country where the humblest of his chil- 
dren may find ample recompense for living. From end to 
end this beautiful north country is 

A LAND OF PROMISE, 
where the poor man may grow rich through industr'y and 
thrifty management. It is a land of promise to the thou- 
sands of eastern sheepmen who want cheap grazing lanos, 
A land of promise to thousands of western sheepmen nhoM- 
overcrowded ranges suggest the need of fresher and greer.i.r 
fields for their flocks. A land of promise to the flocks thiii 
are banished from the forest reserves. A land of brighi 
promise to ambitious dairymen who may find here gr. ■ n 
grasses and living springs in the midst of the finest dtiii> 
market fields of the continent, and the fruit grower wIim 
would plant his orchard and vines where nature pronmi-^ 
the growth of the finest apples, pears, plums, cherries ;uk1 
smaller garden fruits. It is an especially promising country 
to tlje variety farmer who would follow rotative mi\ d 
farming, the surest calling among men. I have seen alon;; 
this St. Paul road no land too thin and sterile to grow 



well cultivated fields that look like extended gardens, and 
though but 15 and 20 years removed from the primitive 
forests and stumps are worth to-day from $40 to $60 per 
acre. The farmers are prosperous, many of them opulent, 
and the pretty homes, fine barns, well kept roads, the public 
and private creameries, the splendid grain and vegetable 
crops and clover and timothy meadows, the herds of well 
bred horses and cattle, and fine school houses show a de- 
gree of rural spirit and progress rarely seen outside of the 
rich farm districts of the older states. It is quite surpris- 
ing that this rich and prosperous farm district fronting upon 
Green Bay and neighboring to the prosperous cities of 
Marinette and Menominee, is supplemented by hundreds of 
thousands of acres of native woodland, cut-over land and 
plain lands where the work of 

SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION 
is now going forward at a surprising pace. Within the 
past year our old friends of the Skidmore Land Co. have 
sold to actual settlers near Porterfleld on the Marinette 
branch, and Ellis- Junction on the main line of The St. Paul 
Road, over 18,000 acres of new land upon which the work 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



of permanent improvement is now in gratifying process 
These lands embrace choice hardwood timber tracts, cut- 
over pine lands and good reaches of open level plains, the 
latter well covered with grazing herbage and well suited 
for immediate occupancy by sheep and cattle men. The 
Skidmore people purchased 100.000 acres around and tribu- 
tary to these railway stations two years ago and within 
that time have laid out and constructed 15 miles of public 
roads, making every portion of their new holdings easily' 
accessible to the new settlers who begin life on their new 
farms under the most favorable conditions. The settlers 
themselves, who are mostly ent^prising people from the 
middle states, show hearty appreciation for these advan- 
tages and are pushing tlie development of their new pur- 
chases with commendable nerve and enthusiasm. 

At Porterfield, half a dozen miles southeast of Ellis 



grain fields are most encouraging object lessons to the new 
settler. I have great respect for these wealthy land holders 
who instead of holding their thousands of acres on specu- 
lation, are. with commendable public spirit, colonizing them 
with a good class of people, thereby contributing to the 
wealth and material and social progress of the county. 
Their holdings are mostly in the central division of Mar- 
inette county, adjoining or neighboring the rich old farm 
districts and 

WILL HAVE COMMANDING VALUE 
when brought under cultivation by the new owners. This 
rich country, which is about as large as Rhode Island and 
ten times richer in agricultural and pastoral resources, has 
behind its rural wealth an urban population of 30,000 in 
the near by twin cities of Marinette and Menominee, and 
is easily destined to become the second most populous 




Field of Clover and Timothy (New Seeding) on Farm in Marinette County, 



Junction, Mr. W. H. Osborn began clearing and breaking 
his new 4S0-acre tract last year and has already comfort- 
able buildings, 160 acres in cultivation to different crops 
which make a splendid showing, and has nearly 100 aci es 
more burnt off and in readiness for the plow and this en- 
terprising young settler surprised me by asserting that 
within two years he would have his entire 480 acres in 
cultivation, looking like an old farm and worth four times 
the purchase price. This wide-awake young gentleman is 
demonstrating in splendid fashion my contention that this 
new country is comparatively easy of settlement. The 
crops of oats, peas, barley, clover and potatoes I saw grow- 
ing on his last fall's breaking are as fine as one may see 
in northern Illinois or Iowa and will make substantial 
revenue for their owner the first year of his occupancy. The 
four-year-old apple trees growing on an old patch of cleared 
land here, were bending to the ground with a burden of per- 
fect fruit such as is rarely seen in older districts. In the 
80.000 acres of new land still owned and now being colon- 
ized by the Skidmore people, one often sees a beautiful 
well cultivated farm sandwiched between fine tracts oi 
wooded or cut-over land, and the orchards, meadows and 



county in the state. It is bounded on the east by 100 miles 
of the Menominee river and drained centrally from north 
to south by the Peshtigo river and scores of tributaries 
and small streams; embraces a hundred clear lakes and 
literally thousands of spiings, and, I fancy, has at least 

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES OF OPEN 
COUNTRY 

in the central and northern divisions, where there is room 
for a full thousand sheep and dairy farms or half as many 
ranches. In all this open country are almost limitless fields 
of rich grazing herbage untrodden except in few instances 
by insufficient bunches of village or settlers' cattle. The 
visitor rides over leagues of it and is seized with an un- 
controllable desire to own the whole country and lord it 
over princely herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. Far better 
though is it for Marinette county and the landless renters 
of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa that the Skidmore and other 
of its wealthy owners shall put it in partition to real set- 
tlers who alone can develop to the full its splendid pastoral 
and agricultural resources. I confess to a cordial liking 
of tile Skidmore people for their hospitality and generous 



10 



FROM MARINEITE TO ONTONAGON. 



treatment of the settlers and homebuilders who come to 
plant civilization in these virgin soils. Not an acre of all 
their splendid holdings is held in reserve, but every quarter 
or half section is consecrated to tillers of the soil and home 
builders. It is very gratifying to visit the Polish and Ger- 
man settlers out in the Peshtigo river country and look 
over their fine grain fields, their big potato and pea patches. 
their comfortable homes and rich clover meadows. Not a 
stack of hay or grain outside, but all under cover and every- 
where an air of thrift delightful to see. Every visitor to the 
Skidmore lands should make this drive out from Ellis Junc- 
tion to the High Falls of the Peshtigo and look over a set- 
tlement whose people never learned to whittle dry goods 
boxes or cut coupons, but know to a dictum how to make 
model farms in a beautiful wilderness. The Skidmore peo- 
ple have an additional or supplementary tract of 15,000 acres 



on pine logs, making wealth for the owners and a thrift 
for a village of 1,500 souls. The Wausaukee river comes 
down from the northern hills in fine volume and the pretty 
school houses and homes, the busy stores, bank and shops, 
the electric light and telephone systems and a command- 
ing high school building tell the story of a prosperous and 
progressive population. Hard by the town are some beauti- 
ful grain and dairj- farms that would honor any of the 
older counties; there are sugar beet fields close on the 
village border that discount anything I have seen in lower 
Michigan, Nebraska or Colorado, but beyond these few 
pretty and fruitful farms and fields lies 

A BEAUTIFUL WILDERNESS 

of cut-over and burnt over land for 40 miles to the west 
and northwest, where the stumps are small and few, the 




Ar30=Acre June Planted Corn Field at Intervale Farm. 



of very fine cut-over and hardwood timbered lands just across 
the Menominee river, in Menominee county, Mich., and 
their holdings as a whole offer as fine a field for the variety 
farmer, dairyman, fruit grower and sheep, goat and cattle 
rancher as one may find in the entire state of Wisconsin. 
If the reader would know more of these lands, their \'alue. 
terms of sale, etc., he may do so by addressing The Skid- 
more Land Co., Tribune Building, Chicago, or Marinette. 
Wis. Four miles northward from Ellis Junction, at 

MIDDLE INLET, 
just on the border of the Skidmore tract, is a hardwood 
district running eastward to the Menominee river, and 
embracing 2,000 or 3,000 acres of well grassed stump land 
well suited to either mixed farming or grazing. The soil 
is a rich clay-loam here and the open country large enough 
for half a hundred small farms. Another run of four miles 
northward brings us — the reader and I — to the bright and 
growing little town of 

WAUSAUKEE, 
where, a twenty million capacity saw mill is still runnini; 



logs mostly burnt oft, and the whole country more or less 
covered with grass and practically ready for the plow. A 
more tempting grazing district would be hard to find. The 
visitor is always in sight of lakes. Brooks or springs and 
amazed to see leagues on leagues of unused grassland that 
would make up into model stock farms or 

IDEAL SHEEP AND CATTLE RANCHES. 
This country, over which the writer and "Shepherd Boy" 
rode with delightful senses for a half day, has grass enough 
to graze all the sheep in Wyoming, and the richest kind of 
browse for all the goats in Texas or New Mexico. It is 
' made up of hills, valleys and miles of beautiful plains where 
the rancher could run 10,000 sheep and have them in sight 
of the dog or herder all the day long. Hon. H. P. Bird, 
the Wausaukee lumberman and banker, is accredited with 
the ownership of 12.000 acres of this tempting grazing land, 
and most of it, I fancy, could be bought by sheepmen at 
reasonable prices, as Mr. Bird is friendly to the sheep in- 
dustry and would favor settlement for that purpose. He 
has within half a dozen miles of town some abandoned 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



11 



lumber camps that would make admirable winter quarters 
for the sheep or cattle rancher and will doubtless favor 
either enterprise, as he is a gentleman of marked puMic 
spirit and enterprise, to whom I am glad to refer the readei. 
Mr. A. W. Larson, the enterprising founder and manager 
of the Wausaukee Telephone System, will also answer with 
pleasure any inquiries respecting this region, with which 
he is not only familiar but liolds in very high esteem. A 
run of ten miles west on the Wausaukee branch of the St. 
Paul road brings us to 

ATHELSTANE, 
in the heart of the beautiful "plains" country, bordering 
upon the Wausaukee district above described. Athelstane 
is a new and unpretentious hamlet with one of the finest 
quarries of gray granite in the country, but it is the key 
to a very interesting colonization movement that promises 



in extent and which the owners are fast transforming into 
ideal red top, alsike and timothy meadows. 
THE CLOVER IVIEADOWS, 
however, are the glory of Intervale, for they show how 
quickly the wild plains may be turned into fields of living 
green and made the basis for rotative farming and future 
productive wealth for these quick, warm and responsive 
sandy-loam soils. Mr. C. E. Rollins, the founder, owner 
and builder of these clover fields, has "found the philoso- 
pher's stone" which John Randolph interpreted to read "pay 
as you go," for the clover feeds the cattle and horses in 
winter, grazes them and the pigs in summer, enriches the 
land, inspires big crops and settles forever the agricultural 
possibilities and value of these open plains country lands. 
Mr. Rollins burns off and stumps a 20 or 40-acre tract for 
$3 or $4 per acre, including the plowing, sows to oats, wheat 




Barns and Silos on Anson Eldred Co.'s Farm, Stiles, Wisconsin. 



much to this northern country and has already demonstrated 
the value of this sandy-loam region for mixed farming, 
dairying, gardening and cattle raising. It is. moreover, the 
railway pojnt for the Intervale Land Company, whose 1,200- 
acre 

INTERVALE STOCK FARM 

is not only the chief attraction of this beautiful open coun- 
try, but the nucleus for a colony of enterprising settlers 
who have in the past three or four years built a good many 
pretty farm homes and opened out some very pretty farms 
in this cut-over and plains country. This farm is improved 
with an attractive home and a score of commodious out- 
buildings for the housing of cattle, horses, hay, grain, etc.. 
has 300 acres in cultivation to oats, corn, wheat, potatoes, 
turnips, cabbage, peas, clover, timothy and alsike and ia 
really one of the most beautiful country places in this north 
region. The home, barns, sheds, stables and corrals are 
prettily disposed in second growth pine groves that have 
been grouped into a charming park and look down upon a 
low-lying natural meadow or intervale two or three miles 



and peas, or plants to corn and potatoes, seeds down to 
clover and alsike and the next year Is grazing cattle and 
horses knee deep in a sea of crimson and purple and gre'en 
or cutting two crops of clover hay. In either case his 
clover land becomes a garden, good for generous crops of 
any and everything thereafter planted. In company with 
Mr. Rollins and a lady visitor from Chicago, we inspected 

A THIRTY-ACRE FIELD OF CORN 

planted on new breaking in the middle of June and now 
on August 22d the corn from six to nine feet high and as 
heavily laden with ears as any I have seen in Illinois. They 
run 130 well bred cattle on this farm — mostly Galloways — 
and keep ten horses for saddle, road and farm service, and 
have a herd of Poland-China pigs, and all that Is wanted 
to complete and perfect the situation are flocks of sheep and 
r.Vngoras. Seven hundred acres of the place are still under 

I tribute to the wild grasses, the king of which is the regal 
.'blue stem," which grows under the pines and oaks and in 
'the open glades and intervals four to six feet high and in 
lany places is dense enough to cut a good swath. Tlie 



imi 



13 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



farm is in the midst of 

THE INTERVALE COLONY 

■nhich Col. Rollins has settled around the big farm in ki- 
urely and sociable fashion — some from Iowa, Illinois and 
Indiana, and some from far Scandia and Germany, and it 
is most pleasant to see each and all of them catching the 
spirit of the enterprising founder of the colony. They 
build in groves or pretty lakeside places and have all caught 
the clover mania of the chief colonizer and that will soon 
enough make a colonial Eden of bloom and fruition. Col. 
Rollins is a Chicago newspaper man who finds time and 
inclination for frequent visits to the farm and colony, and 
is never so happy as when showing a home seeker over 
his Marinette county domain. A score or more of good 
families have built homes and are opening farms here. 



enlightened civilization for his wilderness domain. He holds 
not an acre back from settlement and leads the way to his 
wildwood Aden by planting in its midst an ideal country 
seat. A thousand times better, decenter and more human 
than the land grabber who buys to hold, not sell, he is a 
civilizer and a rural organizer worth a 40-acre lot full of 
the cold-blooded landholders of this beautiful north coun- 
try who have thousands of acres of these rich virgin soils, 
but not so much as a garden patch to sell. The Intervale 
Land Company at Intervale, Marinette Co., Wis., will tell 
you a thousand things about this country that I have l;o^ 
time or space to give, or Mr. C. E. Rollins, 918 Royal In- 
surance building, Chicago, who is a capital correspondent, 
will tell you all you want to know. 

Messrs. Reed and Morton, 107 Dearborn street, Chicago, 
have for sale 15.000 acres of fine cut-over land, well suited 





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Summer Home near Crystal Falls. 



some pretty school houses are well stocked with children 
during the school year and the Intervale postoffice has lately 
been opened. Mr. Rollins and the Intervale Land Co. have 
20,000 acres in the Intervale colony and a little further out 
on the Peshtigo river, and their chief concern now is to set- 
tle a community of sheep and Angora farmers here and 
turn the colony into 

A PASTORAL BEULAH-LAND. 
And why not? Never a finer grazing field was warmed 
by the northern sunshine. Scores of clear lakes embeTlish 
this whole open plains and stump land region, reaching 
southward to Wausaukee, southwest to the Peshtigo and 
beyond, west twenty-eight miles and more to the green 
woods horizon and northwest thirty miles into the Iron 
Mountain country. What a splendid field for colonization 
and for sheep and goat ranching! The brooks full of trout, 
the lakes alive with bass and pike and muskalonge and 
the woods well stocked with deer and partridge. Mr. Rol- 
lins, like the Skidmorcs, is a good and generous colonized 
and has deep pleasure in every new farm settled, in every 
new home built and in every step toward a genial ano 



to sheep farming, and mostly located in the Peshtigo valley, 
Marinette county. 

The Anson Eldred Lumber Co., located at Stiles, Oconto 
county, 26 miles south of Ellis Junction, are another big 
land holding concern that believe in selling and civilizing 
their thousands of acres of cut-over, burnt-over and heavily 
wooded lands rather than holding them for speculative pur- 
poses. Everything with these wealthy holders is for sale 
and a reasonable price put upon it. They have partially 
improved farms in Oconto county, wild grazing and tim- 
bered tracts in Oconto and Shawano counties and can locate 
the new settler on a dairy farm, a sheep or cattle ranch, a 
truck or fruit farm and treat him well while he improves 
and is paying for it. They belong not to the land shark- 
fraternity; but to the land civilizers of the Skidmore and 
Rollins kind who think more of developing and beautifying 
a new country than of consecrating it to moss-growing while 
the neighboring settler is enhancing its value. The Eldred 
people, too, take a strong hand in local farm improvement, 
, and have at Stiles in full view of the St. Paul trains a 
large and highly cultivated dairy farm, creamery and a 
capacious silo for their model herd of 75 dairy cows. Their 



FROM MARINErrii TO ONTONAGON. 



13 



lands are finely watered with springs, brooks and lakes and 
offer an inviting field to the settler. The immediate country 
around Stiles is fairly well settled with a good class of 
people and lands are rapidly advancing in value. 

NORTHWARD FROM WAUSAUKEE, 

up the main line o£ the St. Paul railway are Cedarville, 
Amber, Beecher Lake and Pembine, all active lumbering 
points from four to eight miles apart and all associated 
with good-sized districts of well grassed cut-over st~ump 
and plains land. At Pembine we cross the "Soo" line and 
fifteen miles northward have spanned the Menominee river 
and are high up on the Menominee iron range at 

IRON MOUNTAIN, 

in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We have passed the 
interminable grazing fields of Marinette county and are in 
a new world of rugged scenic grandeur where bold granite 
bluffs, wild rocky gorges and glens rapid rushing river and 



city, with the hope that some other day when the arbutus 
blooms again on these northern hills I may find here some- 
thing better than a street carnival with a babel of vulgar 
tongues for a welcome. Northward twenty miles past 
Traders' Junction, Merriman, Granite Bluff, Randville and 
Sagola, each the nucleus for future farm and stock ranches 
where now are splendid reaches of maple, birch, basswood, 
cedar and hemlock woodland, brings us to 

CHANNING 

and the Ontonagon branch of the St. Paul road. Channing 
is a division station village of 200 or 300 people in the midst 
of a hardwood district of rich soil and there are in the sur- 
rounding cut-over lands some fine locations for summer 
grazing cattle, but the lands are scarcely high and rolling 
enough for sheep raising. Fifteen miles northwest of here, 
however, at 

CRYSTAL FALLS 

on the Crystal Falls branch of the St. Paul railway is a 




W. S. Prickett's Flock and Barns at Sidnaw, Michigan. 



clouds of smoke from a dozen iron mines that crown the 
neighboring hills mark the transition from the pastoral 
to the ideal and industrial. Here is a mining city of 10,000 
people intensely industrial and commercial and evidently 
quite unconscious of the latent pastoral and agricultural 
elements of the surrounding country. The all-absorbing in- 
terest of the day and location is the mining and shipping 
of iron. Nothing else is thought of or dreamt of. The 
humblest street gamin tells you with characteristic local 
pride that Iron Mountain holds the largest iron mine in 
the world," but there isn't a man, woman or child in all 
this bright, buoyant, bustling, busy city that can tell you 
a blessed thing about where the open grazing fields are 
located, how many thousand acres of them, or how many 
sheep and cattle their neglected grasses will graze, or how 
large a rural population the magnificent maple woodlands 
of Dickinson county will support. The sheep. Angora and 
cattle business is like a Greek text book to these delvers 
after the red and brown ores, and but for a chance meet- 
ing with Arthur Roebeck, the Marinette authority upon 
Upper Peninsula lands, I might have pocketed my chagrin 
and passed on to Iron county without knowledge of the 
fine reaches of pasture land a little to the west of Iron 
Mountain. Anyway here's my goOd-bye to the live iron 



vast open counti-y that appeals to the stockman on account 
of its superior grazing and abundant water supply. Every- 
where in this finely grassed cut-over country are springs", 
ti'out brooks, rivers, clear lakes and a dense growth of white 
and red clover, timothy and bluegrass. Judge Llewelling, a 
leading local attorney, estimates this open country at 
200,000 acres, all within a radius of 15 miles of Crystal 
Falls and fit for immediate occupancy by sheep and cattle 
men. Most of this open district has been wooded with 
maple, birch, basswood, hemlock and pine and the soils 
are uniformly fertile and the entire district the finest of 
grass land. Mr. Chas. M. Rogers, the long-time register 
of deeds for Iron county, of which Crystal Falls is the 
capital, thinks this the finest grazing region in upper Michi- 
gan and though a natural dairy country with a number of 
very successful private dairies and creameries, believes 
it equally well adapted to sheep raising and says sheepmen 
would be cordially welcomed to its pastoral advantages. Mr. 
Rogers is a gentleman of wide travel, excellent judgment 
and withal is one of the most popular men in Iron county, 

Jhose opinions of the country would meet approval from 
very representative man hero, and I am pleased to corn- 
end him to sheepmen who want further information of 
the county. 



14 



FROM MARINETTE TO ONTONAGON. 



Crystal Falls is a lively and prosperous iron mining city 
of 4,000 or 5,000 people. It has in operation a dozen or 
more mines and bears in every feature the impress of the 
prosperous and progressive industrial town. It is prettily 
situated on Paint river and with the development of the 
pastoral and agricultural country that environs it, should 
easily grow into a city of 10,000 souls. My old lower Michi- 
gan friend. Dr. H. C. Kimball, who has lived here a dozen 
years or more, is delighted with the country and says it is 
the ideal country for climate, health, deer hunting and 
fishing. From Channing northward by tbe Ontonagon di- 
vision of the St. Paul line, we pass a number of inviting 
grazing situations neighboring to Kelso, Ponca. Balsam, 
Amasa and Tunis stations, all located in fine hardwood 
sections and each with its complement of a thousand or two 
thousand acres of cut-over country. At 

AMASA, 

a busy little iron mining town of 1,000 or more people, the 
grazing field covers 3,000 to 5,000 acres of open land well 
grown over with tame grasses, with neighboiing beaver 
meadows where a thousand tons of blue joint hay could be 
cut for winter use. A number of deserted lumber camps 
offer ample winter shelter for stock and tliere is no end 
of running water. One of the most attractive grazing situ- 
ations on the entire line is at 

SIDNAW 

in Houghton county, 25 miles north of Amasa. This bright 
little town of not more than 350 or 400 people is at the 
junction of the St. Paul and the Duluth. South Shore & 
Atlantic railroads. On the west and north for a dozen 
miles or more are good open sheep or cattle ranges with 
plenty of grass, dozens of trout brooks, scores of fine springs 
and lakes and both north and south of the village are beaver 
meadows where hundreds of tons of the best wild hay 
could be cut for the cost of harvesting. Here is located 
Mr. Walter S. Prickett's 

ROYCROFT FARMS. 

The handsome new buildings in rifle shot of the station and 
300 acres of highly cultivated lands lying on three sides of 
the village. Altogether Roycroft embraces a thousand or 
more acres, but the clean, stumpless fields, the beautiful 
clover and timothy meadows, the dozen miles of model 
woven wire fence, the half-hundred acres of oats and peas 
just now being harvested, the model sheep barns and shed?, 
the 600 or 700 sheep ranging the pastures, the little flock 
of Angoras and the air of neatness and perfect order per- 
vading the place tell how well the heroic and enthusiastic 
young proprietor has wrought here, better than any words 
of mine. The fame of this farm is as widespread as the 
beautiful peninsula and the name of its public spirited 
young master a household word from his old home in Mari- 
nette to Ontonagon, and from Duluth to the Soo. Walter 
Prickelt came to these wilds, a lumberman's clerk. 15 years 
ago, and saw with clear vision a garden land when tht- 
timber and stumps were gone. He saved his wage, bought 
and sold land till he grew opulent, and signalized his lovf 
of the country by rescuing from the wilds this beautiful 
Roycroft farm. He never cut much figure as a land grabber, 
but has made enviable fame all over the peninsula as a 
land civilizer. He sometimes masses 10.000, 20,000 or 30,000 
acres of land, but not for hoarding out of the reach of 
settlement, for it is passed to new holders in a week or 
month and the net proceeds go into farm improvements or 
some other channel where the public is the largest bene- 
ficiary. He never forgets his best of mothers, never over- 
looks the unfortunate, turns his pocketbook over to every 
call of sympathy or charity, leads In every good work for 
the advancement of his town and has boundless pleasure in 
making blades of grass grow where none grew before. His 
boundless energy, cultivated tastes, and splendid working 
gifts are on every lineament of this model Roycroft farm 
which is easily the premier country place of the Northern 
Peninsula of Michigan. There are 300 tons of the finest 
hav in his barns and green cut oat and pea hay in his 
ricks and barracks, and I venture the prediction that every 



pound of it will find its market through the medium of fat 
sheep, lambs or steers. It is a pleasure to find in these 
northern woods a man who values progressive husbandry 
above dollars and whose patriotic interest in his farm, 
town and county is stronger than his love of gold. Mr. 
Prickett lately sold 37,000 acres of land for colonization 
and has more to sell at a price that will soon enough sell 
it. There are several thousand acres of fine clay-loams to 
the south and southwest of Sidnaw that are very desirable 
for general farming and in every direction choice tracts of 
cut-over land where abandoned lumber camps make desir- 
able headquarters for sheep or cattle ranching. 

Northward along the St. Paul line to Pori, a distance 
of 20 miles, the country presents a continuous open range 
for a good distance back from the track, and grass and 
water is abundant. Eight miles further on at Mass City 
there are 2,000 acres or more of fine cut-over country with 
abounding herbage. At Rockland, ten miles further north, 
we are in an old and well developed farm country of pretty 
homes and fine old orchards — a country that has little un- 
fenced range to tempt the nomadic grazier, and another 
run of ten miles brings us to 

ONTONAGON 

and the greatest of fresh water seas. We are in the copper 
range here or rather beyond it and feel the lake influence 
that tempers and modifies the climate of the whole northern 
peninsula, making it the most bearable and enjoyable win- 
ter climate of any equally high latitude in the world. There 
are largely lumbering, fishing and copper mining interests 
centered here. Some of them friendly and some not so 
friendly to my plan for pastoralizing the cut-over grass 
lands of Ontonagon county and the whole peninsula. One 
big lumber firm was sure this was "no sheep country" and 
thought "better of hemlock trees than sheep" anyway and 
made me aware that for once I was on alien ground and in 
an atmosphere of subarctic chilliness that quite eclipsed 
the chill of the lake breeze on that bleakest of days^ But 
in agreeable contrast with the chill of the cool blooded 
"sheep-haters was the warm and kindly greeting of Thorn- 
ton A. Green, the genial and public spirited young manager 
of C. V. McMillan & Bro., every acre of whose large timber 
land holdings were offered to actual settlers as fast as 
cleared. Tliese wealthy lumbermen have been active colon- 
izers of their cut-over lands in Wisconsin and successful 
town builders, too, their prosperous home town in the 
Badger state bearing their honored name, and it came like 
a gleam of sunshine in a stormy day to hear the live 
and up-to-date manager say, "Yes. I am glad to meet you. 
Anything to build up Ontonagon count.\'. Would like to 
show you over our 22,000 acres of green hardwood timber 
land. We are just starting in here and will cut over a 
thousand acres a year I suppose, and every acre will be 
sold to settlers as fast as cut off. Some of it is sold before 
the logging is completed. W iiy should we hold tnese rich 
farm lands and let them grow up to brush when they will 
do somebody good for home building, raising children, cat- 
tle, sheep, clover, orchards. No, sir, we stand in with the 
people every time and not the land grabbers. Other lumber- 
men and big land holders may refuse to sell, but the Mc- 
Millans never. Every acre is for sale as fast as we get to 
it. These lands belong to the people, in a way — are a part 
of their heritage and they must have a chance at them. 
The lumberman is a fool to hoard his lands when the timber 
is gone, as the miser hoards his gold. We should all take 
stock in the public good, help build up Ontonagon and On- 
tonagon county. Don't hurry away. Colonel, or will you 
come again in the morning when the storm is over and 
the sun is shining. Remember me to Messrs. 'Vaughn. Hast- 
ings and Tyler and tell them Thornton Green is with them 
for the new dispensation in the Northern Peninsula." 

This is the kind of talk I had longed to hear, and three 
weeks later I am felicitating myself over the meeting with 
a live lumberman whose lands were all for sale. And now 
as I am saying a regretful good-bye to this beautiful north- 
land I find myself instinctively lifting my derby in deffer- 
ence to Thornton Green and Walter Prickett and to C. E. 
Rollins, the Skidmores and Anson Eldred — the men who 
are making sunshine for the homebuilders of the north 
country. 




REPRESEN TAT IVES 



Aberdeen, S. D. 

O. F. Waller Division Freight and Passenger Agent 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

G. W. Blair Division Freight and Passenger Agent 

Chicago— 95 Adams St. 

C. N. Souther General Agent Passenger Department 

Davenport, Iowa— 303 Brady Street. 

P. L. HiNKiCHs Commercial Agent 

Denver, Colorado— 1039 17th Street. 

J. E. Preston Commercial Agent 

Des Moines, Iowa— 410 Walnut Street. 

E. C. Ne TTELs Division Freight and Passenger Agent 

Dubuque, Iowa, 

S. N. Baird Division Freight and Passenger Agent 

Houghton, Mich. 

H. E. Stewari' Commercial Agent 

La Crosse, Wis. 

A, S. WILLOUCHBY Division Freight and Passenger Agent 

Los Angeles, Cal.— 303 South Spring Street. 

E. K. Garrison Traveling Freight and Passenger Agent 



J. H. HILAND, 

Third Vice=President, 



Madison, Wis. 

W. W. WiNTON District Passenger Agent 

Alason City,' Iowa. 

W. P. Warner Division Freight and Passenger Agent 

Milwaukee, Wis.— 403 East Water Street. 

^ W.J. Boyle General Agent Passenger Department 

^ew Vork City— 381 Broadway. 

W. S. Howell General Eastern Agent 

Omaha, Neb.— 1524 Farnum Street. 

F. A. N.\SH General Western Agent 

Portland, Ore.— 134 Third Street. 

H. S. RowE General Agent 

St. Paul, Minn.— 36.5 Robert Street. 

W. B. Dixon Northwestern Passenger Agent 

Salt Lake City, Utah— 106 West Second South Street. 

C. S. Williams Commercial Agent 

San Francisco, Cal.— 635 Market Street. 

C. L. Caniteld General Agent 

Sioux City, Iowa. 
^ J. G. Love Division Freight and Passenger Agent 



>||. A. MILLER, 



General Passenger Agent, 



CHICA<>0. 



Marin 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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copvi rinette to 



Ontonagon Onto n agon 



A Great Country for the Flock- A Great Country for the Flock- 
. master, Herdsman and Farmer master, Herdsman and Farmer 





Goat Raising in Northern Michigan. 



Goat Raising in Northern Michigan. 



BY COLONEL L. D. BURCH, 

EDITOR "AMEIUC.4N SHEEP BBKEDEB." CHlC.tl. 



By colonel L. D. BURCH. 

EDITOU "AMERICAN SHEEP BREtDKB." CHIOAliO. 



